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I think I might have some cultural differences here, because I don't understand why you would start with "I am against marriage because" and list a bunch of stuff, and then be for civil unions, but with more rights, which to me is just the same thing.

But I'm from France, and over there marriage is a civil contract. People are free to have a religious ceremony as well, after the legal one, and many people do, but the part where you sign the contract is the relevant one. However you celebrate isn't really relevant.

To me, marriage is a form of civil union, and for some reason religious people use the same word for their religious union as well, but even then, the one that's recognised by law is the civil one.

I personally understand that some of the benefits given with marriages/civil unions are unfair (for instance about taxes. I'm not sure why getting married should change how you pay your taxes, if nothing else has changed) but I think some other benefits are only fair, such as inheritance and being able to visit someone in the hospital and make end of life decisions for them.

I also admit to using the legal benefits of marriage to my advantage, as being from a different continent means that to live with a partner, one has to go through a lengthy immigration process, and one of the ways is to get married (not that it doesn't make it lengthy. It's just easier in this economy than finding a job in another country and being able to prove that they couldn't hire someone from their own country instead of you).

But I would be in favour of this advantage that's given to married partners being removed, provided immigration laws stopped being so stupid in the first place
If someone wants to show up and pay you taxes, I'm not sure why you'd want to kick them out, especially when there is no limit on who can become a citizen through birth. If a woman can have 10 children and all of them be allowed to live and work and pay taxes, why couldn't the same woman have 2 children, and 8 people come from other countries 18 years later to live and work and pay taxes? The country gets the same benefits from the workers, AND they didn't have to pay in education and so on to help raise them until now.

Anyways, that has nothing to do with marriage. But basically, I wouldn't be against the state removing every benefit, and it being a contract simply between the parties involved, where everyone sets their own rules (so no compulsory "you need to have sex" rule for instance).

I think I might have some cultural differences here, because I don't understand why you would start with "I am against marriage because" and list a bunch of stuff, and then be for civil unions, but with more rights, which to me is just the same thing.

It's simply that civil unions don't carry any of the historical baggage (women as property, children as a central goal, mix of state and religion, etc.) that marriage does. People speaking out against gay marriage, poly marriage etc. actually have a perfectly valid point to their complaints by weight of history, and religion will always have a say in the matter who gets to marry and who doesn't. (e.g., Catholic theology regards marriage as a holy sacrament, so of course, the Vatican has some authority about who's allowed to marry or not, which secular law cannot ever challenge due to freedom of religion...) Much better, then, to strip all legal meaning, including tax benefits etc., from the term and leave it to religion alone - which IMO includes the option of personal, private, but in no way legally binding spiritual vows - to deal with, keeping secular law completely out of the matter. And if someone isn't not spiritually inclined at all, I don't see why they'd want to insist on calling their 'ship by a religiously charged term like "marriage" anyway.

As for the rights and benefits - in term of children getting ensured to be provided for, and things like last wills/testaments, or terminal illness care when the patient is no longer able to decide for themself, etc., *some* kind of legislation will always be needed to decide who is regarded as "kin/family" in the eyes of the law... so you can't really get a society to work if you get rid of the concept completely.

Giving this necessary legal handle to civil unions alone would work fine, and as it's still a "fresh and shiny" term unclaimed by religion, and without all the historical baggage of marriage, it will be a lot more flexible to adapt for true equal rights for all. ("Civil union" doesn't evoke any pictures of ownership and prescriptive monogamy to me, at all, while "marriage" most definitely does... thus, "poly civil union" seems a natural concept to me*, while I can't help but see "poly marriage" as a contradiction in terms, unless one takes it to mean something like a sultan's harem where one man owns a hundred women instead of owning just one, like a Western husband. )

* Wasn't there one just very recently somewhere in South America? I don't see me ever wanting one, myself, but nonetheless I thought it was awesome, groundbreaking news in terms of progress towards true equality for all forms of relationships. I couldn't see the same thing happening with marriage anytime soon, if ever, as it's a fossilized dead end, in a big part due to its inseparable conflation with traditional codified religion.

Marriage use to be about the exchange of property between a father and the man he chose to marry his daughter to; sure I get that its part of history right up there with owning slaves and human sacrifice.

But it isn't about that now. Not to that vast majority of people. Marriage has evolved just like we did. We accept that difference over time but cannot accept this one?

Why? Are you worried people will still see you as property or think of you in those terms? Maybe a bit of worry that you ARE someones property?

It reminds me of a first date one of my male friends went on. He is the king of dry humor, very very liberal and unconventional. His date asked him what he found to be the most important quality a woman in a relationship with him could have. As a joke he stated that he felt a woman should know her place. She stormed out in a huff and nothing he tried to say slowed her down.
I can guess what she assumed he meant by that but really, its a statement relative to the person saying even if you take them to be completely serious. We all kinda need to know what is expected out of us by someone we are seeking a relationship with to gauge compatibility. And she assumed, rather than find out what it meant to him, exactly where HER place was. For some reason she believed her place to be somewhere under his foot and in his kitchen. Not because HE told her that but because SHE THINKS LIKE THAT.

I see modern marriage the same way. Its what you want it to be. That marriage license doesn't come with some enforcer showing up to make sure you are seen as property. Its your mind that will be doing that for you as long as you allow the history to muddle into the present.

So maybe there is a little of that going on here? If you think of yourself as property to be owned by a man if you marry then that IS what you'll be if you marry. Hopefully one day you'll see yourself as more than that enough to believe others will too.

I got married because I wanted to make an official promise to my husband that no matter what happens in our lives, as long as I still love him, I will do everything I can to work through our problems.

I don't get what the big deal is. If you're anti-marriage, just don't do it. Why spoil it for the rest of us? I'm married, and I happen to love it. Yeah, the tax benefits are great. It's convenient to call certain organizations and say "Hi, I'm Mrs. Schrodinger and I'd like to discuss my husband's affairs," by-passing some of the red tape. But none of that is the reason I got married. In Canada, you get all that with common-law, even the name change if you want. I'm Canadian, so I don't really care how y'all do it.

I'm not an anthropologist, but I'm not convinced that the first instances of "marriage" were fathers selling their daughters. The institution of marriage pre-dates recorded history. Human-ownership is a relatively modern occurrence. For the first 90,000 or so years of human civilization, people still needed a way to guarantee protection for children and pregnant women; in exchange, men guaranteed their paternity. When society as a whole shifted to an attitude of women as property, marriage simply followed suit. When Western society shifted back, marriage again followed suit.

Even the "payment" from fathers for marriage is often misunderstood. In many cases, the dowry was actually a way to protect the woman's livelihood. Should something happen to her husband, the livestock would give her the means to support herself.

__________________“As I am sure any cat owner will be able to tell you,
someone else putting you in a box is entirely different
from getting into a box yourself.”—bisexualbaker

I've been thinking for days about what to contribute to this thread, ever since I saw Jane Q link to it.

I've come to the conclusion that most of what think has already been said, and probably better than I could say it.

- While I recognize the historical baggage of the term marriage, it does not affect my personal marriage. It may affect society's view of my marriage, but I really couldn't care less.

- I agree that all legal unions (whether you call them marriages or civil unions or households or whatever) should have all the same benefits regardless of gender or the number (or sexual relationship) of consenting adults involved. The only thing that would need to really be addressed, as I see it, is how certain benefits would be divided among more than two people.

MC and I got married in a church because it was easier. If it hadn't been easier, a civil ceremony rather than a religious one would have been just fine. A civil union would have been just fine too, had it provided the exact same benefits at the time. We didn't need the piece of paper to show the world our commitment to each other- we wanted it to make medical insurance, property ownership, and having kids easier. And I did enjoy getting to change my last name. My maiden name was ALWAYS getting misspelled and mispronounced!

Why? Are you worried people will still see you as property or think of you in those terms? Maybe a bit of worry that you ARE someones property?

Yep, you're spot on. Both being property to a partner, and having a partner as property... both thoughts are equally repulsive to me, and I can't imagine I'd ever be free of them if I got into that marriage thing. It's like I hear "You're mine now, and I'm yours *hears dungeon door slam shut behind us*". *shudders*

I just have to say that I am glad that there is a my poly is not your poly thing... I don't think disolving a marriage is the answer nor do I feel like I have to be married. I myself prefer some sort of commitment ceromony by those involved and I think it is unrealistic to expect all partners to be equal at all times...
I don't mind that my GF makes less money than me or that my BF makes 2 as much as me. We all bring something different to the relationship.

To me, marriage IS a civil union right now. What it used to be isn't very important to me. Sure, the word is the same. But the word "doctor" is also the same as it used to be, that doesn't mean I expect mine to use leeches and enemas for every single symptom.

Things evolve and we keep the same name for them. I'm comfortable with that. Marriage isn't a property transfer now, it's a contract between equals. It's starting to become legal in the western world for same-sex people to enter such a contract specifically because now, there is no inequality, so no reason for two people of the same gender not to do it as well.

If your problem is simply with the name of it, I don't see why you couldn't enter one and call it something else for yourself, but I'm not sure why every single other person on Earth would have to change their terminology as well. Marriages are already civil unions, in my opinion, just civil unions we call by a specific term because it's the one currently understood to mean "life partnership".

Yep, you're spot on. Both being property to a partner, and having a partner as property... both thoughts are equally repulsive to me, and I can't imagine I'd ever be free of them if I got into that marriage thing. It's like I hear "You're mine now, and I'm yours *hears dungeon door slam shut behind us*". *shudders*

I'd call that a personal issue rather than an issue with marriage because if the people involved in the marriage don't have a mind to own each other, they just won't married or not.

I've had a BF who tried to think of our non married relationship in those terms so it clearly isn't a marriage related concept so much as a sick individual's concept.

To me, marriage IS a civil union right now. What it used to be isn't very important to me. Sure, the word is the same. But the word "doctor" is also the same as it used to be, that doesn't mean I expect mine to use leeches and enemas for every single symptom.

Things evolve and we keep the same name for them. I'm comfortable with that. Marriage isn't a property transfer now, it's a contract between equals. It's starting to become legal in the western world for same-sex people to enter such a contract specifically because now, there is no inequality, so no reason for two people of the same gender not to do it as well.

If your problem is simply with the name of it, I don't see why you couldn't enter one and call it something else for yourself, but I'm not sure why every single other person on Earth would have to change their terminology as well. Marriages are already civil unions, in my opinion, just civil unions we call by a specific term because it's the one currently understood to mean "life partnership".

The problem is that it's a religiously charged word. Marriage has definitions floating around that aren't going to change, as they could only be changed by religious authorities like the RomCath Pope (who shows zero interest to do so): "One man, one woman, for life, now go make babies as that's the whole point of sex!" I'd like for a secular state to get utterly rid of those associations sooner rather than later.

Also, I don't understand the logic in your last paragraph... if it is, to you, two words meaning the same, why would it matter if one of the words gets abandoned outside of religious parlance? If they're the same, then dissolving all (non-religious) marriages and replacing them with civil unions, and making religious marriages obliged to get a c.u. on top in order to get legal benefits, shouldn't get more of a shrug than, say, a candy bar rename ("Raider now is called Twix!" ).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinccenzo

I'd call that a personal issue rather than an issue with marriage because if the people involved in the marriage don't have a mind to own each other, they just won't married or not.

I've had a BF who tried to think of our non married relationship in those terms so it clearly isn't a marriage related concept so much as a sick individual's concept.

That can't be true (as a general rule, at least), as the ownership problem would become an issue to me only due to the fact of marriage. By marrying, I'd become both slave and slavemaster in my mind in a way that simply would not happen in a civil union, or in a 'ship that's not ever turned into a legal/official contract at all. Marriage, to me, would sicken a relationship that up to that point may have been perfectly healthy.